Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to semiconductor devices and methods of manufacturing the same and, more particularly, to semiconductor devices having bit line contact plugs and methods of manufacturing the same.
In general, a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device may include a plurality of memory cells, and each of the DRAM cells may include a cell transistor and a cell capacitor electrically connected to the cell transistor to store a data therein. The cell transistors may be formed in and/or on active regions which are defined in a semiconductor substrate, and the cell capacitors may be electrically connected to the cell transistors through contact pads and contact plugs. Recently, as semiconductor devices having unit cells become more highly integrated, areas (planar areas) that the unit cells occupy have been abruptly reduced. Thus, various process technologies for forming fine patterns as well as various cell layouts for obtaining compact cell structures have been proposed to realize highly integrated semiconductor devices. A semiconductor device including active regions, word lines and bit lines extending in different directions form each other is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,809,364 B2 to Matsuoka et al., entitled “Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Device and A Method of Manufacture Thereof”.
According to the U.S. Pat. No. 6,809,364 B2, the semiconductor device includes word lines extending in a first direction, bit lines extending in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, and active region disposed to extend in a diagonal direction that is non-parallel with both the word lines and the bit lines. In such a case, bit line contact plugs may be disposed to be adjacent to storage node contact plugs. Thus, there may be every probability of electrical shortage between the bit line contact plugs and the storage node contact plugs. This electrical shortage phenomenon may occur due to a short distance between the bit line contact plugs and the storage node contact plugs. Accordingly, various cell structures and/or various process techniques are still required to realize highly integrated semiconductor devices.